cause removed, the effects should not be active, and be active, solely, from suggestions of the imagination. To this the adversary to that interlocutor made answer, that though the evils complained of, have long ceased, yet that among papists the principle remains, and must justify every legal penalty they are exposed to: He converted supposition, into a fact which he could not prove. With no better argument, the Dialogue was attacked in a voluminous pamphlet, by Mr. Walter Harris, a gentleman unversed in the philosophy of history, and flagrantly abusive, but fit enough for his office of a compiler. Dr. Curry replied in a book intitled Historical Memoirs; a work well received by the public, and from which Mr. Brooke had his materials for his Trial of the Roman Catholics.

Still indefatigable in the cause of his country, he enlarged his plan, in a work intitled, An Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, printed in 1775. Therein he gives a general view of the times from Henry II. and commences his details with the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ending with the settlement under King William. This is the present work, now greatly enlarged from the doctor's manuscripts, with new matter taken from parliamentary journals, state acts, and other authentic documents; to which he has added, The State of the Catholics of Ireland, from the above period under King Wil liam to the relaxation of the Popery Laws in 1778. The author dying two years after, deprived us of having this valuable work as perfect as if published under his own inspection.

I shall now observe to the reader, that the intention of the author in the following work was solely to instruct, not to misrepresent, to conciliate, not to irritate; and, in the execution of such a design, it was incumbent on him, to remove the false grounds of a torrent of invectives, which have borne down repeatedly on our good sense, and which, if not stopped in its course, may sweep away before it some practicable schemes for public prosperity. If some are so prejudiced as to reject several facts herein related, because they were taught to reject them in life; yet they will take the less offence at our author, as his materials are chiefly taken from those very authorities on which the invectives we have mentioned, are said to be founded; and consequently can admit of no dispute concerning their credibi lity. No man of the present age (catholic or protestant) is con

cerned in the conduct of those of any former age, otherwise than by contrasting the causes and effects in the one with those in the other, and instructing us thereby to put a proper estimate on our present happiness, and to remove any ill impression the public may still retain, in regard to times so very different from our own. This is placing a mirror before the reader, wherein beauties and deformities are fairly reflected, and whereby deductions may be made, for improving our minds and manners, by the justness of the representation.

BALINAGAR,
May, 3, 1786.

C. O'CONNOR.

THE testimonies of the most able and patriotic of our writers, as well as the gratitude of a country, whose character he has rescued from obliquy, render any panegyric upon the merits of DOCTOR CURRY, as an historian, superfluous. Indeed, since the days of Swift, it would be difficult to designate a literary advocate to whom Ireland owes so great and unequivocal an obligation. To some honourable names indeed a portion of praise may be awarded: but there were few who presumed to question the policy of the English Deputies, or to hint a doubt, even with becoming caution, of the attrocious crimes attributed by the British Nation to the People of Ireland. DocTOR CURRY was the first, that in the midst of a reign of prejudice, and while the sanguinary and inquisitorial statutes of Anne, if not in actual operation were in full vigor, had the merit of investigating the history of his country, and the rare courage of publishing a vindication of her character. Whether we consider the patience of research displayed in that vindication, or the variety and strength of the documentary evidence adduced, or the unimpeachable accurary of deduction prevalent throughout the work, it may be pronounced one of the most complete and incontestible apologies upon record. For a dark and disgraceful century had Irish History been looked upon as a Register of the Crimes of the Irish People. The calumny of Temple, Borlace, Cox, Çampion, and Carew, had become the popular belief in England. They were woven into the History of of Hume, and acquired all the permanence and currency which a polished style and philosophical appearance of împartiality could bestow. Hence a system of plunder and persecution, organized into a code of laws, was excused, for defended it could not be, by an appeal of calumnies even more monstrous than those of Sir Richard Musgrave. Insult was added to outrage. The Irish were considered as scarcely human, and inhuman indeed was the system by which they were oppressed. DOCTOR CURRY'S Book, however, effected a revolution in the public mind. From the irrefragable testimony of Protestant and English Writers; from Public Records of unquestionable authenticity; and from the admission of the pillaging and sanguinary agents of Britain; he has proved, that in every instance the Kings of England, their Deputies, or the fiends to whom they committed the execution of their massacres and burnings, were the aggressors.-He has

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demonstrated that the crimes charged upon the Irish were provoked by the most wanton brutality on the part of their oppressors; and that in atrociousness, number and extent, they shrunk into insignificance before those which were practised upon them. This valuable Book, which is written with a moderation that is really astonishing, and which the Editor acknowleges he should in vain endeavour to imitate, has been long out of print. The first Edition, which was originally formed and founded upon a controversy that arose between the Author and Mr. Walter Harris, appeared in a quarto volume, 1775. It is accompanied by an introduction, which from the tenor should seem to be written by another person. It is, however, the composition of CURRY, being an enlargement of a previous essay prefixed to one of his pamphlets. This introduction was omitted in Mr. Luke White's Edition, 2 vols. octavo, 1786; in the present it is restored. There is also given a short sketch of DOCTOR CURRY's life from the pen of Charles O'Connor. I object to its conciseness, but I am not without hopes, on a future occasion, of offering a more extended biography of this. gentleman to the Irish Public. One of his sons, an old gentleman, who has long since retired from the Austrian service, is now living in the vicinity of this city, unpatronized and. almost unknown!

The Text, the Notes and the Appendix has been reprinted with the most scrupulous fidelity. In short, no labour has been spared to render this Edition of CURRY'S REVIEW OF THE CIVIL WARS IN IRELAND, one of the most faithfully edited, as it is beyond all comparison, one of the most patriotic and natio nal works ever published in this country.

From what has been just said, its superiority in point of document and detail over all former Editions is abundantly manifest-its cheapness, considering the high price of paper, printing materials and labour, is equally striking. The former Editions, inferior both in the beauty of the type, and in the fabric of the paper, would now sell for nearly double the price demanded for the present. Indeed it is the wish of the publisher, without aiming at high remuneration, to give a neat but unexpensive edition of those works on Irish History, which instead of propagating calumny and absurdities, render justice to the country, and may be the means of procuring her, at no distant day, a full enjoyment of that liberty, of which she has been so long and so unworthily deprived.